Pablo chuckled.

The indicator on the wall counted through all fifty-six floors before reaching “PH.” A chime sounded and the doors slid open once again. A small lobby greeted them, and beyond that a pair of fine wood doors. Someone had hacked them open with an axe, which leaned against the wall nearby.

“After you,” Ana said, and bowed. “Tonight, we set the real world aside.”

Skyler found himself inside a spacious apartment, trimmed and furnished in luxurious fashion. The modern décor was a study in hardwood and shades of gray: bleached slat floors, black carpets, and walls done in two-tone vertical gray stripes. Black leather couches and chairs were backed by brushed-metal supports. The kitchen had every convenience imaginable, all stainless steel surrounded by black marble and whitewashed hardwood cabinets.

All of this paled compared to the curved glass wall that ran the entire length of the space. The sky outside blazed orange and red around a sun half-set behind the mountains to the west.

As Skyler took in the view, Ana set to work in the dining area, placing cutlery and candles upon the thick wood table. Vanessa took to the kitchen, hoisting her backpack onto the counter and removing the contents within. Two bottles of wine, plus something wrapped in brown butcher paper and tied with string, as if she’d just popped out to the corner store.

Pablo ventured out on the balcony and dropped his pack near a professional grill built into the wall beside an empty lap pool.

“What’s going on?” Skyler asked Ana.

“It’s my birthday,” she said, and offered him a half smile as she lit a candle.

“Isn’t this a bit excessive—oh.” He swallowed the rest of his comment, realizing his mistake. Ana’s birthday meant it was Davi’s birthday, too. “Shit. Sorry.”

A loud pop saved him from further embarrassment. In the kitchen, Vanessa giggled as champagne erupted from a green bottle and splashed onto the floor. It might have been, Skyler thought, the first time he’d heard the former lawyer laugh.

Dinner consisted of chops Pablo had cut from a boar he’d felled that morning. He’d grilled the meat to perfection and it dripped with hot grease as Skyler shoveled the first bite into his mouth. For a side Pablo had roasted vegetables inside packets of aluminum foil with a dash of cooking oil, salt, and pepper.

The trio had brought enough wine for each of them to claim two bottles, and a wet bar within the apartment offered up a dozen different options for harder libations.

For a time no one spoke, at least not verbally. The chatter of cutlery on porcelain, the murmured coos of pleasure brought by rich, flavorful food, said everything that needed saying. The meal eclipsed everything Skyler had eaten in months. No, he thought, years, as he savored a sip of the merlot. Better even than the bowl of ramen that Prumble had served him after his journey through no-man’s-land.

And then Vanessa poured the wine. She said a toast in Portuguese, then wished happy birthday to Ana on behalf of the whole world.

Ana blushed and took a healthy gulp of wine.

With food and alcohol consumed the birthday party started in earnest. Skyler and Pablo handled the task of clearing the table by flinging dirty dishes from the fifty-seventh-floor balcony. Ana fiddled with the entertainment panel until she had the entire place flooded with music that blended electronica, fizz-def, and traditional Latin instruments. Soon she and Vanessa kicked off their shoes and the two danced on top of a polished teak coffee table, Ana with a bottle of champagne in hand, as the deep rhythms boomed.

Skyler thought back to the first time he’d ever seen her, twirling in graceful arcs, a long white dress flowing around her toned body. Her movements had been fluid, even delicate. Now, dressed in khaki shorts and a stained tank top, her hiking boots kicked off, she showed a different side. Skyler thought of the university girls who filled dark clubs in Utrecht on the weekends. More than a few had warmed his bed back then, during the peak of his transition to manhood, before he’d joined the Luchtmacht. The Darwin Elevator had arrived a few years before, but the explosion of hope the device created in the world’s youth still raged. A fine time to be an eighteen-year-old, he mused.

Ana’s eyes were closed, lost in the thumping, aggressive tune that blared from recessed speakers in the walls. For her to come of age in a post-disease world somehow filled him with more anger at the Builders than all the billions who had died or succumbed, and all the survivors who remained trapped within the auras. They’d stolen a proper, carefree childhood from this young woman, and so many others. Ana just had the fortune, or misfortune, perhaps, to live on as an immune. How could he begrudge her the desire to act with reckless abandon now and then?

She had earned the right, and much more.

Well after midnight, the four immunes lay haphazardly on cushions they’d amassed on the wide balcony. Stars filled the sky above, and the silken voice of Ella Fitzgerald wafted over them from the penthouse suite, just loud enough to fill the occasional lapse in conversation.

Each immune shared their story, in more detail than previously given. Pablo, with a little wine, showed signs of a sly sense of humor under his strong and silent façade. Even Vanessa, who spoke last, opened up somewhat. The mental scars she bore from her imprisonment in Gabriel’s lodge ran deep, though, and she avoided the topic entirely.

Skyler’s experience in Darwin fascinated the others, and so he spent the most time talking. He told them of the events that led to Tania’s discovery of the new Builder ship, and how they wound up coming to Belém. He also told them of the scavenger crew he’d run, and the fate that had met both them and their beloved aircraft, the Melville.

Wine began to dwindle as dawn approached, and the gaps in conversation widened. Soon the others slept soundly under the stars, but Skyler found it difficult to snooze there. He’d always preferred a dark, quiet room. More than once he found himself jerking awake, caught halfway between a dream and reality. At some point Ana decided to use Skyler’s stomach as a pillow, and he had to cup her head in both hands to get out from beneath.

He left the three of them there and crept inside. A long draw from his canteen chased the aftertaste of alcohol and roast pig away. More time would be required before it could do the same for the headache he felt coming on. He relieved himself out the window of one of the bedrooms, then grabbed a blanket and pulled it over his shoulders.

Yawning, Skyler settled on the big leather couch in the main room of the suite, and slept.

He woke to bright sunlight, reflected into the west-facing room off the white marble pillars that lined the edge of the balcony outside, and promptly snapped his eyes shut again. It must be past noon already, he thought, and wondered if their absence from the colony had become a concern. He’d neglected to bring a handheld.

The smell of coffee kept him from a return to sleep. When he sat up, he realized a mug rested on the table near him, steam rising from its lip. He rubbed his eyes and took in the room. Ana, Vanessa, and Pablo all sat on the floor around the low table, each with a mug of their own in hand.

“Morning,” Skyler said, and sipped. He would have used more sugar, but he didn’t complain.

“We need to speak with you,” Pablo said.

Uh-oh. “Should I switch back to wine first?”

“Stick with the coffee,” Ana said, her voice light.

He didn’t know exactly how to take that remark. After a quick study of the dark brown liquid in the cup, he tilted it back and downed the remainder. “Right, then. What’s on your mind, birthday girl?”

“The three of us have been talking,” she said, “since dawn. Talking about our future, and yours.”

“Is there more coffee?” Skyler asked, glancing toward the kitchen.

“We talked about what you told us,” she went on, ignoring his lame attempt at evasion. “About your crew, I mean.”

“Oh,” he managed to say. The three of them looked very serious now. All the previous night’s revelry banished with the break of day. My old crew. Yeah, I really fucked that up, what about it? “Is there more wine?”

“We thought it might be best to make this little band we’ve formed official,” Vanessa said, imparting an authority in her voice like only a lawyer could. “We want to be your new crew.”

Skyler stared at the three immunes in stunned silence.

Pablo spread his hands. “We already are, really. It’s just never been … eh, stated.”

“You all are free now,” Skyler said. “You don’t have to do this. Stay if you like. Relax. Hell, you deserve that. Or go, as Elias did. I don’t need—”

Ana moved to sit beside him, and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Skyler, each of us decided to stay for our own reasons, since that night. Since Elias left, though, things have been different. It’s like none of us want to become too close, in case someone else leaves.”

“Or dies,” Pablo noted. The offhand comment stalled Ana’s speech.

“Yes. Or that,” she agreed, her eyes as distant as her voice. After a second she shook her head slightly and focused on Skyler again. “You shouldn’t have to wonder if we’ll be around tomorrow. You shouldn’t feel guilty asking us to help on your scavenging trips. We want this little family, this crew, to be official. So the camp will know they can rely on us. So you can rely on us.”

Skyler stood and walked to the kitchen. He emptied another packet of powdered coffee into his mug and poured hot water on top. A new crew. The thought repeated over and over in his head.

The faces of his former crew flashed in front of him. Jake, Angus, Takai … all dead. Then there was Samantha. Skyler felt guilty about a lot of things he’d done since the disease drove him to Darwin, but none more so than the day he left Samantha behind on Gateway. For all he knew, she was dead, too. He wondered if he’d ever find out.

Why anyone would want to follow him he couldn’t fathom, and yet it seemed to be a curse he couldn’t shake. But deep down he knew one thing for certain: He didn’t want any of his new friends to leave. He wanted them at his side. Needed them. No matter how much he might try, he would always be the oddball among the colonists. The idea of spending the rest of his life as some loner, some freak of nature, filled him with dread.

Skyler stirred the coffee with an ornate silver spoon. “If you guys fall in with me, call me your leader, wouldn’t that make me some kind of replacement Gabriel?”

“No. For starters,” Vanessa said, “you’re not a complete asshole.”

“Or a murderer,” Ana added.

“Or a rapist.”

Pablo said the last, and to Skyler’s surprise Vanessa didn’t recoil from the word.

Skyler fought a smile and focused on his drink. “That may be true, but I don’t want to be some dictator here. If we’re going to be a crew it’ll be a crew of equals. I may call the shots on one mission; maybe it’s one of you on the next. Everyone gets a say in where we go and what we do.”

“Fine with me,” Ana said.

“Yes,” Pablo said.

Vanessa nodded.

Only after he’d said the words did he realize he’d just proposed that their crew run the same way Tania ran the colony. Consensus, discussion, mutual respect. He wondered if he’d been too hard on her. Karl and the others, too.

A few seconds of silence followed, and then Skyler raised his mug and held it over the table between them. “A crew, then.”

Each raised their own cup, and the four clanked together.

“Wait,” Skyler said. The others froze and watched him retreat to the kitchen again. He found four clean champagne flutes in a cabinet, and an unopened bottle. “Where I come from, it’s bad luck to toast with anything other than alcohol.”

They each smiled and plucked an offered glass. “To the crew,” Ana said, raising her flute. The toast was echoed in unison, and everyone drank. Skyler never cared much for champagne, but here, now, the bright and sweet liquid seemed the perfect choice to seal their pact.

“So,” Vanessa said when her glass was empty, “what will we do first?”

Despite all of Skyler’s talk about being equals, they all looked to him. He finished his drink and set the glass down. “First? I think we’ll become teachers.”

Chapter 28

Darwin, Australia

30.AUG.2283

GRIT AND SAND filled the air of Nightcliff’s landing yard, churned by the thundering engines of the Advantage.

Even from within the windowless cabin, Samantha could hear the fine powder blast the aircraft’s fuselage. Some portion would get sucked back into the turbofans themselves, which meant hours of cleaning and tests later.

The Advantage had been originally specced for short-range delivery work. Packages and parcels mostly. As such the interior had no conveniences for passengers. Just a pair of hot seats that butted against the cockpit wall. The rest of the cargo compartment was all bare steel walls, ugly rivets, and rows of ring hooks on the floor and ceiling to attach plastic nets.

The netting draped over four large stacks of pillow-shaped bags, each filled with topsoil from a field in nearby Queensland. On the trip out, the same space was occupied by fresh environment suit packs. More aura-scrubbed air and water for the workers who filled the dirt bags.

She’d made the trip dozens of times in the last few months. All the scavengers had. The crews ran like clockwork and worked like slaves, all under her stern direction. And she under Grillo’s.

The craft lurched and Samantha heard a dull thud. “Secure on pad three.” The pilot’s voice came through her borrowed flight helmet. She didn’t bother to acknowledge. Instead she stood and tossed the helmet into the foldout seat she’d occupied. Tired legs carried her past the cargo to the rear-loading ramp. At the flip of a switch, the aircraft’s rear hatch opened like a whale’s mouth.